Photos: Plug-In Vehicles On Parade!

A parade of 74 plug-in vehicles really makes you realize how entirely silent electric cars are. We stopped by Plug-In America’s parade in Santa Monica, Calif., on Saturday morning, which celebrated the upcoming presidential inauguration, and the procession would have been almost eerily silent if the participants weren’t all happily cheering. The trade group says the parade was one of the largest gatherings of plug-in vehicles ever.

We took these pictures of Tesla Roadsters, a variety of conversions (a Porsche speedster, a Miata, a Geo Metro) as well as green-car celebrities. Chris Paine, the director of Who Killed the Electric Car, gave a speech and was hanging out filming the sequel, Revenge of the Electric Car. “Reverend Gadget,” who told us his plug-in auto shop, Left Coast Electric, burned down three months ago, brought a converted Porsche Speedster, which uses lithium polymer batteries (though he wouldn’t tell us who the supplier was). Coby Skye and Gabrielle Weeks showed off their converted Geo Metro, created with parts they bought online, including deep-cycle lead acid batteries.